Descansos: Resting places. Symbols that mark a death…
A few weeks ago (around the same time a woman in my women’s circle was diagnosed with cancer) my women’s circle began the Descansos process, taken from the book Women Who Run with the Wolves. In this process I took the time (several weeks, in this case) to look at the time-line of my life birth to now and mark where the small deaths and big deaths have taken place; All of the moments in my life where I experienced impact;
Or loss;
Or where there was a fork in the road and I took one path, when I could have taken another;
Or where I experienced an event which changed the way I thought/believed about myself, the world, about men, about women…
At week three I then acknowledged
the forgoing,
the forgetting,
and the forgiving
that I have or have not done in every single one of these life experiences. What beliefs did I take on in these instances? What charge do I still carry around some of these forgotten until now moments and transitions? How did I change?
These places, these little deaths and their resting places have now been marked – just like the little shrines we see at the side of the road where someone has died. Marked as the resting places for life’s deaths which have molded me into -who I be- as a woman in the world today.
Tomorrow, completing this month-long Desconsos process the women and I will create real physical Desconsos – alters/crosses with flowers, images, mirrors, notes of forgiveness or notes of rage, etc; paying tribute to the small deaths and the big deaths…
~
“Women who are tortured often develop a dazzling kind of perception that has uncanny depth and breadth…”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Women Who Run with the Wolves
